Music for Mao...

Just another one of those shirts i found in one of those secluded, hole-in-the-wall closets that pass for a store here in Japan:



this is just one of about six shirts i bought (1000yen each) from this place the first time i walked in. i think i cleaned out all his "good" stuff b/c i don't think i ever really found anything there that i liked again when i went back. oh well.

actually, finding/getting to this place was probably the most interesting part:

all along this main covered stretch of Shinsaibashi-suji (covered walkway), there are a bajillion stores left and right...but on the left side of the busyness is this forlorn looking little rectangular table that has an assortment of "stuff" strewn all over it, with no person looking after it. one would just look at the table and keep walking on by...but i noticed it was set up right next to the wall, next to a door. dark door...with a single dim light on the wall inside, and once you looked in and to the right, you'd find a narrow creaky staircase that led up into some sort of "attic":

...venture up into the attic, and there you'd be rewarded with a small, narrow room (again, dimly lit, two fluorescent tubes down the center of the ceiling) that had rails along the 2 side walls just stuffed full of t-shirts etc. hanging there, some shoes, bags, and other knick-knacks...and lastly the caretaker of this operation - slumped in a corner behind a small counter at the back of the room...almost hidden and disappearing into haphazard piles of his own merchandise.

after making small-talk w/ the scruffy dude behind the cash register, i started scanning the racks. by that time, i think i'd developed a pretty good sense of discernment as to what was really "worth" getting (aka interesting, nice, quality, etc...), and so after a few quick minutes i'd gathered about 7 shirts that i thought i liked. i think the guy was in disbelief that he'd had a customer that day, or b/c he thought i was going to rob him.

i told the guy i wanted to try them on...but like a lot of shops in Japan, he said they didn't do "fitting", nor did he even have a changeroom. i'm sure he figured he would've lost some considerable business if i just dropped all 7 t-shirts back on his counter and left, and he was the dude who owned the place (i gathered this from our initial "yes, i'm a foreigner, i'm not japanese..." blablabla intro conversation), so he motioned for me to have a look at the mirror that he had in the shop. i told him i'd just try 'em on out here then if he didn't mind. it was a tiny shop, like trying on clothes in a shed pretty much. he hesitated, but then agreed...and that was that. i tried 'em on, they fit...except this ONE that would've TOTALLY made my day if i'd been able get it:


dammit, too small!

(refer to the last post if you don't know why me having this t-shirt would've been priceless!)

anyway, the rest of 'em were fine, so it wasn't all a loss.

i have to say, i felt slightly pleased with myself for a)finding such an odd shop, and b)managing to break some normally pretty strictly enforced "rules" in the japanese store: no "fitting" (trying on t-shirts), and no pictures.

i dubbed it the "Shady Shinsaibashi T-shirt shop", and whenever i found myself in the area while accompanying friends on vacation, i made a note of it to take them there. almost every single person i brought there would walk away with at least one purchase...and needless to say the shopkeeper dude remembered me well.

here's another one from the initial visit:



that's all until next time...

Banana-Ts...

(from the Giordano shop in Kobe)

my obsession w/ bananas didn't necessarily start in Japan...(i've always known they were healthy and ate them for their health benefits and as a quick way to charge/recharge for triathlon-training)...it's just that i ate them so much more (almost exclusively) in Japan b/c they were the only fruit that was relatively cheap ALL the time.

strawberries? unless you get them in season (even then, only at the super-cheapo store), they're going to cost you about 7-800yen a little box. apples? sometimes they're around +100yen each! same w/ oranges, grapefruit, etc...oh and don't even THINK about buying grapes. but BANANAS on the other hand...AHA! they're always less than 200yen for a little bundle of 4-5. if you want the "fancy" ones with the sticker that says "del Monte" or "Dole" well, then you may pay 1-200yen more, but still they're a bargain compared to the rest.

and did you know: a "long time ago..." bananas used to be really expensive in Japan? so expensive in fact, that they were only reserved as a food to be bought for consumption if you were sick/ill??? i'm not joking...this information came from more than one local source in Japan, and was confirmed every time i asked to make sure...wow.

but ANYWay...so i adopted the banana as my ichi-ban suki no furutsu (favorite fruit) here in Japan, and as one would observe from reading all the notes/letters my students wrote me...everybody knew it too. pictures and writings about turtles and bananas filled pretty much every other page, along w/ all the usual "thank you's", "i love you's", "i need you's", "please come back to Japan/our school's", "i have a stomach ache's"...(yeah...some kid wrote that, funny boy)...can't fault them for consistency i guess.

anyway, those notes/letters are a whole other post all together - probably my most treasured cargo from Japan (even more so than all these tshirts!), but where was i again?? o right...the bananas.

so i biked to/from school every day, and pretty much 99% of the time i left school on my bike, i'd have a banana all unpeeled and ready to eat for the ride home. whether it was a long ride...or short ride...didn't matter. at first kids would be wide-eyed/laughing hysterically, and eventually the more outgoing ones would even come up to me as i was walking over to my bike and "check-up" on me and ask something about "where's the/your banana?".

i'd find a garbage can to throw the peel in along the way home (usu. at a konbini) too, or i'd toss it in my basket and throw it away when i got home. never, not EVER did i litter...b/c well, hey i'm a teacher and i'm supposed to set a good example right? right...

the looks/comments you'd get from just eating a banana in public, albeit riding a bike, just hilarious. you'd think nobody in the city had ever seen someone eating a banana before or something...either that, or they were just so happy to be able to say an English word (they'd point and say: "OH! Banana!!"). i guess it could be b/c it's such a bright yellow fruit, highly visible...they even have a whole family of cartoon characters that are...well, bananas! "elite" bananas, led by the one named "banao". and nowhere else i've been has had so many t-shirts that feature bananas as well...so in a way, i guess it was just meant to be.

ok that's enough about bananas for now i guess...if you'd like to know more about bananas, bananas in Japan, or Japanese bananas vs. other foreign bananas, i'd love to have a chat about it over a cup of banana juice or something. really, i would.

i leave you w/ yet another banana-t...this one i call ero-banana:




(from Spinn's Shop - Kyoto)

Running Ninja...

taken from the infamous UNIQLO collection of t-shirts. these come out once a year in limited quantities (depending on demand/exclusivity of the designs i guess) as part of the "UT" project.

"UT" (standing for: Uniqlo T-shirts i assume...) is a prime example of Japanese fashion marketing that absolutely kills dimwits like me. they get people (all kinds: big corporations, traditional companies, small-business, big-name designers, independent artists, etc.) to submit their designs (kind of the same idea as "threadless.com" i guess) and then they roll them out slooowly...in limited batches at first. the designs range from plain (simple front print), to more complicated/unique (back/side/arms), and promote everything from products, companies, emotions, photography, music...food...you name it.

a few new ones every couple of weeks to keep you on the lookout. and the smartest thing of all is the "bulk discount"; buy one at 1500yen a pop, two for a little bit less, three for even cheaper...all the way down to i think it was four for like 1000yen each or something like that. add in the fact that after a few weeks on display some shirts go on sale, either b/c they're getting "old", or sometimes it's just spontaneous...and also, certain shops in different locations don't always have the same designs (i.e. Kobe's Uniqlo may have certain shirts that they don't have in Osaka, or Kyoto, etc...) although the majority of them are everywhere.

if you're lucky enough to be able to wait it out till the "real" end of season...you can pick them up for 500yen, or sometimes even 390. but then of course, you take the chance of the one you want being sold out...or they don't have your size. so that was the predicament: buy them on sight, at the risk of forgoing the bulk discount, or wait it out??? sometimes you can find 2 you like...but not another 2 to make 4 so you can get them all for 1000yen each...and you're afraid they'll sell out of the ones you already see...so maybe you buy them. a week later you see that if you'd have waited a little longer for the NEW shirts that came in...you could've...*sigh*...one of the company's latest slogans that i saw before leaving the country said it all:

TOO MANY T-SHIRTS!!!

i'd like to think that all the ones i did end up buying were "worth" it b/c they're unique/funny/interesting enough to me, and that they're truly expressive of the time i spent in Japan...but then again who am i fooling? i'm just glad i didn't get raped by customs shipping them all back home! =P

here's my weak attempt at trying to post a low-tech vid/clip of the "Running" ninja...

Spider Rabbit...

picked this one up at a shop on top of a supermarket in the Guch. first off i would've never would've even noticed the supermarket if it hadn't been for Yoriko (1st teacher i taught w/ when i arrived) showing me one afternoon during lunch. she only showed me the grocery store; it was my curious nature that led me up the suspicious-looking escalator...which took me from the 1st floor (food & produce, sorta like a Save-on-Foods)...up through a portal to a land filled with cheap, unique, and most of all...amusing clothing.


(Spider-man is extremely popular here in Japan so i understand that much...but the rabbit?? beats me...)


throughout my 2-year tenure in the Guch i would periodically return to this "secret garden" to peruse the goods...and converse w/ the obachans at the cash register using broken Japanese and/or English. they would(embarrassingly) come to recognize me as the "otokomae" gaijin who they'd thought was Japanese, but was in fact Canadian, and was also Chinese, and taught English at the neighborhood JHS. lovely... =\

well, on the bright side...i guess it's nice to be recognized/acknowledged? lol

matta ne...